Business School Students Meet Prof. Soli Özel and Endeavor Turkey

As part of the Chazen Institute Global Immersion Program, Columbia Business School students spent a week in Istanbul exploring the city's entrepreneurship and start-up scene with Prof. Jack McGourty. Students interacted with business leaders and prominent scholars, hearing first hand about Turkey's business environment and the opportunities and challenges faced by entrepreneurs. On January 21, they were introduced to the programs of the Columbia Global Center and heard from Prof. Soli Özel of Kadir Has University, who gave a lecture on current political dynamics in Turkey and the region. Students returned to the Center on Friday, January 23rd, for a one-day immersion program led by Endeavor Turkey. Emine Etili presented an overview of Endeavor's work in Turkey, including the results of a recent research effort to chart the impact of networks in the development of the technology sector. This was followed by a panel featuring lawyer Burçak Ünsal, and three entrepreneurs from the Endeavor network (Başak Taşpınar Değim, Berkin Toktaş and Sean Yu) who shared their insights from their own journeys with start-ups. The students then visited the headquarters of Markofoni, one of Turkey's leading tech enterprises.

For more information about the Global Immersion Program, please visit: